The contest is literally made possible by fossil fuel interests. This year’s sponsors include the Salt Lake Petroleum Section of the Society of Petroleum Engineers and the Utah Division of Oil, Gas & Mining. Last year’s sponsor list was longer, including Arch Coal, Anadarko Petroleum, and Rio Tinto/Kennecott Utah Copper.

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Any child in Utah between Kindergarten and sixth grade is eligible. The contest’s primary objective is “to improve students’ and the public’s awareness of the important role that oil, gas, and mining play in our everyday lives.” Last year’s contest winners made posters that detailed how dependent we have become on fossil fuels. To their credit, the grand prize winner detailed both ways we use products created by fossil fuels and ways we can reduce our consumption.

Some parents are not happy, as this letter to the editor by Colby Poulson makes clear:

Why is the state backing an “Earth Day” contest that celebrates fossil fuels, while completely ignoring the adverse effects that their use and extraction can too often have on our air quality, water quality, public lands and the other organisms we share the world with? Shouldn’t Earth Day be about championing things that can help reverse the negative impact of our dependence on fossil fuels?

Frankly, I’m disgusted that the state is backing propaganda like this in our schools.

Why allow a contest like this to run two years in a row? The state could be taking its cues from its Congressional delegation, one of whom runs the House Science subcommittee and denies the reality of human-caused climate change. Or its state legislature, which in 2010 adopted a resolution doubting the reality of climate change.

Based on extensive scientific research, there is very high confidence that human-generated increases in greenhouse gas concentrations are responsible for most of the global warming observed during the past 50 years. It is very unlikely that natural climate variations alone, such as changes in the brightness of the sun or carbon dioxide emissions from volcanoes, have produced this recent warming. …

Utah is projected to warm more than the average for the entire globe and the expected consequences of this warming are fewer frost days, longer growing seasons, and more heat waves.

Appropriately, the winners of the Earth Day poster contest will be notified on April Fool’s Day.